They choose the time and subject of the disclosures to have a maximum negative impact on the United States.

How Spying Is Just Like Sex

The uproar in Europe over spying by the U.S. National Security Agency has led to calls for a treaty or code of conduct to limit espionage. To understand why this is naive, imagine a treaty to ban sex. It would be honored in the breach. States, too, have an overwhelming natural impulse: to spy.